Tyler Greene of Modern Art Notes asks others to list their top five american buildings, because the AIA list has a flawed methodology and is therefore kind of crazy. since five is way too little, i am making 5 lists of 5: domestic, institatuional, religious, monumental, and transporting. his list is here

Domestic:
Winchester Mystery House, Sarah Winchester
many of the examples that are used, are examples that were made in an auter style, famous architechts working thru their own ego, trying to make something genius instead of functional, i think the winchester house, and other examples of outsider buildings remind us that there are other reasons to build. its also a really great example or working thru of any number of american ideas and issues, the archtype of the haunted house, that work can distract, that creating chaos and confusion leads to a kind of liberation, and that liberation is vital--its almost a mad american literalaztion of benedicts maxim. (also that one person could do all that work for many)

Peir Koenig, Case Study House 21. 1956-1958
The irony, of course, is utopian housing for middle americans becoming idealised housing for the v. rich is well dictated, and there are examples of it in houston and SF that said, every thing in this house, the angles, the lighting, the placement, the furniture, the lighting, whispers: this is new, this is the future, you arent afraid of the future, are you? for something pure, it pops up amongst the decadents w. fair frequency (ie the anniversary party; where the truth lies; that cocktail party shot by julias sherman


The Houses of Memorial Bend,50s and 60s, Houston, William Floyd Norman
There used be a whole web page of these, but it seemed to have died a sad death, Houston was one of the first to extend the possiblities of vernacular modernism, and the post war chic of these is a great example of how local sensiblities could transform a similatry of forms. This is a blog by someone who loves them:here

Vanna Venturi House, Robert Venturi, 1962
I like the radical geometry, the statement on ornament in the 20th Century, the playing with Loos and his children, and i like how the mother liked the house, how she enjoyed living in it, or seemed to enjoy living in it. I love, however, the giant stairway (i always like the basic mechinchals made into visual statements)


This Nantucket Victorian



Institutional
Kirkbride Hospitals
it seems ironic that 120 years after the fact, after the failure of commuinty care, and pysch wards, that the most humane attempt at treating the mentally ill, was this experiment, mostly because of the building, the thinking of how the building worked with people. This one is in buffalo an desinged by William Hobson Richardson in the 1870s later inventor of Richardson Romensque.

Louis Kahn, Center for British Art, New Haven, CT
So Fucking Pretty. (couldnt find a proper pic on line)

Louis Sullivan, National Farmers Bank, Owatoona, Minnesota.

it looks like he forget everything but the top, the balance, and geometrical skills are all there, it is a perfectly formed building, with a seductive ornamental rytyhm, and excellent uses of colour and form, plus glass, etc but also kind of batshit.

Slaters Mill, Pawtucket RI, 1792

i like how agricultural it looks, like a fancy hog barn.

Kresge Auditorium, MIT, 1953 Eero Saarinen

Saarinen reminds me of a time where the future was all curves and glass and pure sunshine. (how do they play sports in this one, wouldnt balls and such breaks the glass?)

religious
Radner Meeting House, 1718

No real difference here, b/w a house and a meeting house, the reductive simplicity, means that people come close, and forget spectacle

Crystal Cathedral Complex (Cathedral--Johnson, Aborteum--Neutra, International Center for Possibility Thinking--Meier)

That they got three of the best american architechts of the 20th century to create this proably says more about capital then anything, and that it is so modern, so outrageously, campily modern, suggets some kind of working out that failed to work, is amusing enough, but it does give you that swirl in the belly, looking up and feelign the awesome nature of god, that said , teh grounds are filled with statues of pure kitsch, mostly b/c the parishoners felt so isoalted by the grounds and b uildings (there has to be something to be said for churches that are desingned not for the parish, but to look good on television)

Shaker Barn, Hancock, Mass.

Circle, because of the infinite, and much larger then the neighbours, because livestock for a community needs more space then livestock for a family, the merging of metaphysical and qautidian tasks, the idea of farm work as a sacred unifying act, is written about commonly in shaker theology, but this makes it clear.

San Diego LDS Temple, Kenneth Moeller, 1988-1993

For something so much directed in the past, it screams past the future, like if the masons who did chartes decided that fighter planes were next (also one of the last lds temples to be created before the stake center area started)

Islamic Center, Dearborn Michigan,2005


Dearborn Michigan has the largest per capita population of muslims in the united states, the population grows larger, as communities gel. This is an icon of post mdoernity then, populatiosn deciding on the tradtions of needs of their communities, and creating instutions that reflect them, regardless of geography, that this was done after 9/11 makes it stronger.

San Pedro Square Rosicrucian Museum, San Jose, CA, 1927

Where Deco interest in Egyptology match 19th century interest in the oblique sciences, hugel well crafted grounds, include theological instutite, library, cafetria, musuem, and planterium, kind of kooky, but geniunely beautiful and not at all outsidery. (think of it as a serious, holy remake of those 20s cinemas or Wrights Mayan house)

side note:
here is the mies chapel for the illinois institute of tech, it amuses me greatly, b/c there are no signifers at all of any purpose of this building, the shadowed bird there is not the holy spirit descending like a dove, it is to prevent birds from flying smack dab into the middle of it.


Monumental:
STatue of Liberty,New York Harbor, Base:Richard Morris Hunt, Sculpture:Frederic Auguste Bartholdi

the great thing, is that the base, adn the concrete island go out of their way to make it seem like a statue that large, in the middle of the harbour is a normal, everyday occurance, they sort of fail, but they do make the work more liveable, and less opressive.

Sleeping Beauty's Castle, Anaheim, Walt Disney, 1955

(Image by Arbus, A Dark Castle in Disneyland, 62)
The central image for the whole park is one that is symbolic of feudalism and of an eternal sleep, and the castle lords over this artifical utopia like some kind of paropticon.

Brooklyn Bridge, Roebling, John Roebling, 1883

O Keefe, 49
Cause it reminds me of a Cathedral to the Machine Age.

Grand Hoover Damn, 1928-1940, Colardo River

mostly, i think, because of how functional it is, how well it does the job of holding that much water in, and how if we didnt have it, we wouldnt have vegas or la or any number of other cities, but also, because of the smooth walls, the wide size, the windows, they made sure that not only functionaly, but aesthtically, it would work.

Vegas Vic, Las Vegas, 1950


Transporting
Union Station, Los Angeles, John and Donald Parkinson, 1939

I have always been impressed at how large they can scale up colonial revival architechture, and i also like how it dovetails nicely into deco

T and P Station, Marshall Texas, 1912


Port of Seattle, Seattle,

Its the Red Colour! (they all look the same, but those container ship cranes are a highlight of new archtiecthual and transportation systems, and seattle intergrates it into the harbour and skyline in a really aesthetic way)

TWA Terminal, Eerio Saarienen, 1956-62

The ventalation grills, starways, resturants, all of the auxilalry stuff, that is added afterwards, is considered as important as the causeways, and the curves swing and fly, in an age of airbuses, and security concerns, the theater of flight as been groudn itno the theater of paranoia, and work this integral cannot be made again, maybe the inability to add secuirty meant that jet blue said no to revising it.

16th and Mission Terminal, BART, SF,
intergrates into the shopping plaza above grond and below ground, scandvian style tile, adn a dramatic roof.